Who is Pete?
Once upon a time, in a Galaxy far, far away……………
I was in a sales job, which, don’t get me wrong, is great if you’re target driven and hungry for that next win, but an office environment was slowly killing me, so I looked at that fork in the road and thought f*** it.
It started with me learning how to do massage so I could get a little bit of extra income coming in through the door, it wasn’t a great time for me but it helped me get through. This was the starting point really and got me thinking about other people’s health, looking at things like posture and muscular skeletal stuff, making sure people weren’t screwing themselves up physically!
I somehow fell into the yoga scene too (I think a girl was involved….you know, boy meets girl, girl does yoga, boy does yoga to impress girl. The yoga lasted longer than the girl, but hey everything happens for a reason right!)
Whilst practicing yoga I was seeing the immense benefits of it. I had long established knee problems from football and running, but the yoga kept this at bay, making the joint stronger and better.
Doing some practice at home and I noticed my son Joe doing it with me, he was only 4 at the time but it got me thinking; if I can get the benefit from this then so can he.
I went off and qualified as a kids yoga teacher and for the first 3 years of this adventure that is all I did, teach yoga to kids, in schools nurseries and gyms, then the parents started asking about classes for them and so I got qualified as an adult teacher.
Over the years the Personal Training side has increased and taken over from the yoga side of things, I mean I always said I would be out of the kids yoga scene when I hit 40!
Throughout my time as a PT my views and training techniques have changed. I believe I have evolved as a coach, which I think you need to, otherwise if you stand still, the world just spins around and life misses you.
This job is becoming more and more wellbeing and nutrition based and so I have continued my education in this field.
I have seen what can happen to you if you live a life with crap nutrition, the effects it has on the body, the health issues you can get by being overweight.
I’ve been there, lived through having a really shit diet and no doubt if I continued as I got older I would have experienced a lot of the crap that comes along with it.
In the past I have been the person who sat there and whose breakfast consisted of 2 pro plus, a ciggie or two and a can of Lucozade just to get through the morning.
That was me for ages.
The heaviest I’ve been is only a stone and half heavier than where I am now, but I was also a good 14% body fat more than I am now.
You can’t out train a crap diet and that is so true.
So I turned myself around, it wasn’t easy and it hasn’t been a quick fix but the benefits I have now are so much more than I could have ever imagined.
Having learnt that mindset is about 70% of your training and this is what I try to work on with clients.
I had to teach myself to be positive, to be resilient and have some self-belief – it’s not impossible…….I understand this now! You need to learn to love yourself a bit.
I don’t think I will ever stop learning about the body and how it is affected by what you put in it, what you do with it and what you surround yourself with.
It is a fascinating subject and that is one of the reasons why I love doing what I’m doing. I want people to enjoy their workout – I mean obviously I hurt them, but let’s smile whilst we do that. I see people changing, not just physically but mentally too and this makes me smile 🙂
So what do I do outside of training and coaching? Well apart from playing at being dad and husband I do like a gig or two and a movie, those of you in the ‘inner circle’ will know this.
I’ve had to learn to switch off, so having a family life and interests outside of my work is important to me. I have a little plaque to remind me of this;
‘Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life’.
Now go……..train, be happy, healthy and go spread the love people!
Now, if you actually wanted to know what qualifications I have got to be able to do all this then you can follow this link and have a butchers.